Tuesday’s morning business round up of Bangladesh

2:32 am January 15, 2013| Last Modified: 2:32 am January 15, 2013

Dhaka, Bangladesh (BBN)-The World Bank’s external panel is unhappy with the exclusion of ex-communications minister Abul Hossain from the list of accused in the Padma bridge corruption case. In a letter to the ACC chairman, the panel said Abul’s exclusion shows that the Anti-Corruption Commission is not conducting a complete and fair probe into the corruption conspiracy.

The inter-bank call money rate hit 13 per cent Monday as the central bank has squeezed the timeframe for assured liquidity support (ALS) by 15 days and purchased US dollar with Bangladesh Bank (BB) bills instead of cash money.

The government is going to take about $1 billion in defence purchase loan from Russia at an unusually high interest rate. The deal will be signed between the two countries during Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s three-day visit to Moscow where she flew to yesterday

The World Bank (WB) is set to strengthen its monitoring the uses of its financial assistance to Bangladesh. It will hold a meeting in Dhaka next week to review the utilization of its nearly US$5.0 billion assistance in the pipeline, officials said Monday.

The National Board of Revenue has asked income tax commissioners to examine the sources of income and expenditures of professionals, including doctors, lawyers and engineers, who, the board suspects, hide their actual income in order to evade taxes. Tax commissioners have also been instructed to find out any kind of hidden transactions made by professionals using credit cards and by other means in and outside the country.

Members of European Parliamentwill ask retailers to compensate the victims of the fire at Ashulia-based Tazreen Fashions, which was making clothes for global brands. Three groups of parliamentarians are going to adopt resolutions on the Bangladesh fire at a four-day plenary session that started yesterday.

Apart from prices of the drugs controlled by the government, prices of the de-controlled items have increased by 70 to 100 per cent over the last one year, sources said. Currently more than 1,300 generic drugs are being manufactured locally but the government controls prices of 117 items; and for the rest of the items the manufacturers themselves fix the prices.

Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE)yesterday sat with merchant banks as part of its meetings with market stakeholders to find ways to rejuvenate the bearish stockmarket. “We are trying to identify the problems behind the continuous downward trend as well as possible solutions to revitalise the market,” said Rakibur Rahman, president of the premier bourse.

Dhaka stocks went down for the two sessions in a row Monday with turnover value dipped to seven-month low amid liquidity problem and investors’ lack of interest in the market. The turnover of the country’s premier bourse — DSE stood at BDT 1.19 billion at the end of the day’s trading session, the lowest since July 8, last year, when it was recorded BDT 1.15 billion.

BBN/SSR/AD-15Jan13-8:50 am (BST)

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